R.I.P. Kuell, Forever in Our Hearts

On our way home from Lake Turkana, we were driving through an extremely remote area where the people live in caves and our truck was stopped by two men on the side of the road, one of them was armed. The man with the gun proceeded to put it up to the face of our driver and ordered him to stop the vehicle. After nearly 5 minutes of agitated and high-pressure negotiation, the driver, our tour guide, our two cooks, and our assistant program director Victor, were successfully able to convince the men to let us go. These two men were not interested in us at all—only our money. For most Kenyans, a white face means money and these impoverished Turkana were desperate enough to threateningly rob us. The men apparently demanded a million Kenyan shillings—an outrageous sum, which we were able to negotiate down to 50,000. Our professor gave all that she had, 30,000 shilling while the rest of us students were asked to give between 200-300 shillings, the equivalent of no more than 5 US dollars. Although it was one of the longest five minutes of our lives and although it was quite scary, we were all extremely thankful for the outcome. The whole situation could have been a lot worse and we were all counting our blessings that no one got hurt. We were all obviously shaken up by the incident but after reporting it to the police, we learned that this was the first ever-recorded robbery of tourists in the area. The company we were traveling with has been doing the same trip for over 20 years and nothing even remotely similar has ever happened to them. AU students on the same program went on the trip last semester and had no problems whatsoever. It was for this fluke reason that I initially chose not to write about the incident in my blog. I for one did not want people to worry about me—I will not be going back to Turkana and the circumstances are such that this incident could never happen in Nairobi. Additionally, I didn’t want to reinforce the stereotype that Africa is dangerous and unsafe, because this was just one remote, extremely unlucky and uncommon event. One of the purposes of this blog is to show that Africa is not all backwards, dangerous, and generally bad and that despite the poor reputations, both Africans and Africa have a lot to offer.
So why did I now decide to write about what happened? In an absolutely tragic event that occurred three weeks ago, Kuell, the cook who accompanied us on our Turkana trip, was shot and killed in a similarly located area of Turkana where our robbery occurred. Kuell was with a small group of 6 tourists returning from Turkana, when the truck passed a few people on the side of the road holding out an empty water container. The people did not appear to be armed, but when Kuell came out of the truck to give them water, he was shot in the chest and killed. The fact that Kuell voluntarily asked the driver to stop the car to give these people water shows the kind of person that he was. Kuell was an amazing man, who, even though he was born in Sudan and adopted in Kenya, loved all Kenyan people and was always charitable with them. Kuell was the kind of person who was always smiling and who was always engaging conversation with us. I remember going up to him after being robbed and giving him a huge hug—he made me feel safe. He was the first one out of the truck and the one that did the majority of the negotiating during our scare. Kuell was not only extremely brave, but he was protective and did all that was in his power to make sure that we were all safe. In addition to being an amazing cook, Kuell was extremely compassionate and a generally great friend, father, and husband. I grew quite close to him on our 8-day trip and that is why I decided to write about what happened. I do not know if these are two isolated events or if the two are somehow connected, but I do know that his death may have been prevented. After our incident, our professor went to the Gametrackers office and told them about the threat that we encountered. Following the robbery, our professor took the appropriate precautions to ensure that we were safe. We reported the incident to several police offices and from that point on we traveled back to Nairobi with two armed policemen in our vehicle. Our professor adamantly insisted that Gametrackers, if they still desired to continue running the Turkana trip, provide each departing vehicle with at least one armed policeman in order to ensure the safety of their employees and clients. Gametrackers did not listen to her and sent Kuell and the rest of his team to Turkana unarmed, putting them in clear danger and allowing for the murder of an innocent man. KJ, our professor, is now spending almost all of her energy in order to bring justice and deservingly punish Gametrackers, writing the embassies, the newspapers, and warning all people against traveling with their services.
I whole-heartedly support her efforts and hope that she will be able to make an impact. Me personally, I just wanted to write this posting in honor of Kuell. All I know is that by killing Kuell, those men have taken from us a great man, however, I am confident that Kuell is in a better place now. Kuell, you will never be forgotten, may you rest forever in peace.